Shame on you for making me click on this thread under false pretense! Or however you spell pretense.

I demand you add the word 'American' to the title of this thread.

I was going to actually, but there wasn't enough space.

Monkey Mcdermott wrote:

American football requires less pure athleticism than football, less toughness than rugby, and less strategy than basketball.

Well, if by "pure athleticism" you mean the ability to run around a lot, then I agree. The ting about American Football is that the positions are much more specialized than in most other sports. Even the fat offensive linemen are tremendous athletes.

If you CREATE a position that requires a certain body type to fill, that position is not inherently athletic. Moreover their moments of athleticism are short bursts of action followed by 30 seconds of rest for the duration fo the game, in both rugby and soccer, you go full tilt for 90 minutes. Fat offensive linemen would die of heart attacks trying to play those games.

Quote:

Less strategy than Basketball? Surely you jest. American Football requires more strategy than any professional sport I've seen. Unlike basketball (with only 5 on the floor per team), one player cannot take over a game. Every play is different and tries to find a weakness in the enemy defense. Then when you have really good coaches you see that some plays are called just to confuse the defense later in the game. I'm sorry, but basketball cannot compare when you're talking about strategy.

Yeah, strategy in the war games sense of revolutionary war strategy compared to modern warfare strategy, where everyone lines up nice and neat for every play vs having to watch constantly moving targets and being ready to switch instantly from defense to offense when the opponent makes an error. Unimpressed...rugby is the superior physical game, soccer is the superior thinking mans game.

BoySetsFire, The 49ers looked good in their first preseason game (unlike the Packers who are turning in a very poor performance) and if Carson Palmer can come back Healthy the Bengals should be good.

WVU is a popular dark horse candidate for the National Championship this year, but I don't see it. I almost look at the Big east like it's a Mid-Major Conference now. I mean, sure, the best team in it (Presumably WVU) is a good team but they don't play enough good teams to really prepare them for a National Championship-Caliber opponent.

ok, judging from the political cartoons the univ. of oklahoma sooners did something monumentally stupid, but i haven't been paying attention to the papers - anyone want to tell me what it was?_________________aka: neverscared!
a flux of vibrant matter

Rhet Bomar, I believe, was the name of their starting Quarterback. He started last year as a very highly-touted but rough around the edges Freshman and ended up putting together a decent year. He was expected to have a great season this year and with a more than solid suppoting cast (including a Heisman candidate at Running Back) Oklahoma was #5 in the the preseason coaches poll.

While his name is still Rhett Bomar, he will no longer be the starting quarterback. He was apparently working at a car dealership and being paid for hours which he didn't work. The end result is an NCAA violation and he was kicked off the team. A starting guard was doing the same thing and was also kicked off the team (though since the O-line is much less glamorous than quarterback, less attention has been given to this). The los of these two players effectively ensures that Oklahoma will have another mediocre season.

People are highly critical of the coaching staff for not keeping a closer watch on their players and preventing things like this from happening. I don't know how much you should blame the coach (I happen to think Bob Stoops is a pretty stand-up guy), but he certainly seems to be catching much of the flak._________________Scire aliquid laus est, pudor est non discere velle
"It is laudable to know something, it is disgraceful to not want to learn"
~Seneca

American football requires less pure athleticism than football, less toughness than rugby, and less strategy than basketball.

Well, if by "pure athleticism" you mean the ability to run around a lot, then I agree. The ting about American Football is that the positions are much more specialized than in most other sports. Even the fat offensive linemen are tremendous athletes.

If you CREATE a position that requires a certain body type to fill, that position is not inherently athletic. Moreover their moments of athleticism are short bursts of action followed by 30 seconds of rest for the duration fo the game, in both rugby and soccer, you go full tilt for 90 minutes. Fat offensive linemen would die of heart attacks trying to play those games.

All sports "create" a position that require a certain body type to fill. That's why Limebackers and professional weighlifters are no good at soccer, despite being amazing physical specimens. You're arbitrarily placing one set of physical strengths over all others by virtue of the fact that you favor the sport which requires them, which is stupid. While it's true that your average linebacker wouldn't be able to keep up in a soccer game, it's equally true that the average soccer player (and the vast majority of rugby players, for that matter) would be reduced to a broken, weeping wreck after a few plays on the O-line. You might as well say that sumo wrestlers aren't athletic because they don't run marathons. Grow up.

thegrimspectreofreddeath ftw _________________bi-chromaticism is the extraordinary belief that there exists only two options
each polar opposite to each other
where one is completely superior to the other.

They do have a point about the strategy though. Correct me i i'm wrong, but isn't it all set plays that they do. If the players memorize which way to run they have all the tactic they need. (I know it's unfair but i'm thinking of this scene in Forrest Gump ).